[2024:44] The aptly named lesser Green Finch, believing it was a Phoenix, Richard Weaver

lit on its usual perch, a sycamore branch at the edge of a ranch house. And quickly rose when its feet pads complained loudly of excessive heat. Then, saw between bouncing bouts of flight and gliding with wings closed, a tree aflame beneath. The curse of a Phoenix in situ. Another tree, this time an oak; another near immolation. A Calder mobile nearly melted Dali-like before the Finch-Phoenix leapt airborne. A marble piece of Dame Hepworth cried poisonous tears before Finch-Phoenix departed. A hurried fluttering to a Duane Reade for Tums provided no relief. Nexium. Prevacid. Gasiscum. All caught fire. As did apple cider vinegar, clam juice, Egyptian licorice, fresh pineapple juice, ground ginger and baking soda. Avoiding episodes of Comedians in Cars getting Coffee changed nothing. Ingesting myrrh only inflamed the problem. Desperate, the Finch-Phoenix flew towards the sun, where the world began and would end. As it sang and rose its shape changed; it became a goliath Heron. Aka Bennu. (Not the asteroid. A Ra impersonator). The real deal. Fully feathered. Flocked. With two long feathers cresting its head, rising above water from its ben-ben, primordial mound, its cry the first sound in the newly risen world, marking the beginning of time, and it’s fiery death and rebirth in 500 years. The Finch/Heron/Phoenix, all birds of the sun, ever mindful of the nature of incense twigs, and CO2, rose as one to bring life anew, ascending as all must do to life beyond, seeking sustenance from light and sea spray, fire and water, descendants all from Herodotus’s lump of myrrh.